U.S. Pat. No. 5,175,030 (Lu et al.), the teaching of which is incorporated herein by reference, teaches a method of manufacturing structured surface materials by depositing uncured resin having hard and soft segments on a master negative, filling the cavities of the negative by moving a bead of the composition between a substrate and the master, and curing the deposited composition by ultraviolet radiation while keeping the temperature during curing to not more than 50.degree. C. above the typical use temperature of the finished composite plastic article. Hard segments are segments such that a homopolymer of such segments has a glass transition temperature above some preselected value, typically 300 K. Soft segments, alternatively, are segments such that a homopolymer made of such segments has a T.sub.g below 300 K.
Some acrylic resins that are particularly useful in manufacturing microstructured articles for optical uses utilizing the teachings of the Lu et al. patent have a melting temperature, T.sub.m, greater than room temperature. Thus they must be heated to practice the method of the Lu et al. patent. Typically the materials according to the Lu et al. patent have been heated to about 55.degree. C. in order to make them sufficiently fluid for them to fill in the cavities of the master.